Chapter Eleven.
Charley and Harry begin their sporting career, without much success—Whisky-John catching.
The place in the boats usually allotted to gentlemen in the Company’s service while travelling is the stern. Here the lading is so arranged as to form a pretty level hollow, where the flat bundles containing their blankets are placed, and a couch is thus formed that rivals Eastern effeminacy in luxuriance. There are occasions, however, when this couch is converted into a bed, not of thorns exactly, but of corners; and really it would be hard to say which of the two is the more disagreeable. Should the men be careless in arranging the cargo, the inevitable consequence is that “monsieur” will find the leg of an iron stove, the sharp edge of a keg, or the corner of a wooden box occupying the place where his ribs should be. So common, however, is this occurrence that the clerks usually superintend the arrangements themselves, and so secure comfort.
On a couch, then, of this kind, Charley and Harry now found themselves constrained to sit all morning—sometimes asleep, occasionally awake, and always earnestly desiring that it was time to put ashore for breakfast, as they had now travelled for four hours without halt, except twice for about five minutes, to let the men light their pipes.
“Charley,” said Harry Somerville to his friend, who sat beside him, “it strikes me that we are to have no breakfast at all to-day. Here have I been holding my breath and tightening my belt, until I feel much more like a spider or a wasp than a—a—”
“Man, Harry; out with it at once, don’t be afraid,” said Charley.
“Well, no, I wasn’t going to have said that exactly, but I was going to have said a voyageur; only I recollected our doings this morning, and hesitated to take the name until I had won it.”
“It’s well that you entertain so modest an opinion of yourself,” said Mr Park, who still smoked his pipe as if he were impressed with the idea that to stop for a moment would produce instant death. “I may tell you for your comfort, youngsters, that we shan’t breakfast till we reach yonder point.”
The shores of Lake Winnipeg are flat and low, and the point indicated by Mr Park lay directly in the light of the sun, which now shone with such splendour in the cloudless sky, and flashed on the polished water, that it was with difficulty they could look towards the point of land.
“Where is it?” asked Charley, shading his eyes with his hand; “I cannot make out anything at all.”